Belgium - Unemployment Rate





Belgium: Unemployment Rate

Mnemonic LBR.IBEL
Unit %, NSA
Adjustments Not Seasonally Adjusted
Monthly
Data Jan 2024 5.6
Dec 2023 5.5

Series Information

Source European Communities, EUROSTAT
Release Eurostat - Unemployment
Frequency Monthly
Start Date 1/31/1983
End Date 1/31/2024

Belgium: Labor

Reference Last Previous Units Frequency
Unemployment Jan 2024 521,411 513,132 #, NSA Monthly
Unemployment Rate Jan 2024 5.6 5.5 %, NSA Monthly
Labor Force Employment 2023 Q4 5,146 5,141 Ths. #, CDASA Quarterly
Primary Industries Employment 2023 Q4 59.1 58.8 Ths. #, CDASA Quarterly
Tertiary Industries Employment 2023 Q4 4,208 4,204 Ths. #, CDASA Quarterly
Total Employment 2023 Q4 5,146 5,141 Ths. #, CDASA Quarterly
Wage & Salaries 2023 Q4 74,192 73,218 Mil. EUR, CDASA Quarterly
Labor Force 2022 5,625 5,535 Thousands, NSA Annual
Secondary Industries Employment 2022 569,406 562,103 # Annual
Agriculture Employment 2017 63,644 62,609 # Annual

Release Information

Unemployment level and rate, by sex and broad age bracket, for countries in Europe.

Unemployed persons are, as according to the International Labor Organization (ILO), all persons who were not employed during the reference week and had actively sought work during the past four weeks and were ready to begin working immediately or within two weeks. Unemployment rate is the share of unemployed persons in the total number of active persons in the labor market (active persons are those who are either employed or unemployed).

  • Measurements:
    • Thousands of persons (Ths. #)
    • Percent (%)
  • Adjustments:
    • Trend
    • Seasonally adjusted
    • Not seasonally adjusted
  • Native frequency: Monthly
  • Start date: As early as 1983m1
  • Geo coverage:
    • Individual countries: 34
      • Europe
      • For comparison: Japan, U.S.
    • Geo aggregates: 14
      • Euro zone changing composition
      • Euro zone fixed composition 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19
      • EU 15, 25, 27, 28, 27 post-Brexit
  • All concept-geo pairs exist: Yes, for EU members

Eurostat aims at harmonizing the calculation process as much as possible. For all countries, the non-seasonally adjusted quarterly averages of the monthly series are benchmarked to the quarterly LFS figures. However, the way the figures for the individual months as well as the provisional figures (for the period when LFS is not yet available) are calculated depends on the availability and specific characteristics of the sources available in individual Member States. Apart from quarterly figures, in some Member States monthly and/or 3 month moving averages are produced from the LFS as well. Registered unemployment data is used for many Member States as auxiliary source. The length of the series and specific correlation with the unemployment as measured with the quarterly LFS varies from country to country.

Every month new figures from the public employment offices' administrative registers or from the national LFS are added into the process and new estimates are calculated. This might cause a slight revision in the past figures due to the re-execution of the seasonal adjustment procedure. Whenever the new LFS data become available, a potentially larger revision takes place from the months of that particular quarter onwards.